The use of Fishermans' pliers, tweezers or fishing tools for the purposes of holding, tying, and retaining one member (e.g., hackle) relative to another body (e.g., a fishing hook) has been widely practiced for some time. Exemplary of early devices which were designed and intended for use as fishing tools is U.S. Pat. No. 5,568,698 which was issued to Harding on Oct. 29, 1996, for an invention entitled "Multipurpose Fishing Tool." Another example of fishing pliers is provided by U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,012 which issued to Lael on May 4, 1993 for an invention entitled "Fisherman's Pliers." Still another example of a fishing pliers is provided by U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,318 which issued to Bigej on Jan. 10, 1989 for an invention entitled "Fisherman's Pliers." Each of these examples is typical of the types of fishing tools or pliers which rely on an inherent ability of the tools or pliers to reconfigure itself for complete engagement of the distal tip with a particular item.
In many applications it is desirable that fishermens' pliers or tweezers provide a stable fastening means against which a structure, such as a hackle, can be positioned and held stationary. To accomplish this, however, it is necessary for the operator of the fishing tool to maintain hand or finger pressure on the handle end of the pliers or tweezers to maintain engagement of the distal gripping means with the hackle or fishing line. While the pliers or tweezers are engaged with the hackle, the tweezers, in the present invention, are used to facilitate treading the hackle over the fishing hook shaft and position it is a predetermined location for tying.
In addition to the functional considerations mentioned above, it is also of practical importance that the tweezers be easily engaged with and disengaged from the particular hackle or fishing line with which it cooperates. The preferred method for maintaining engagement, of course, would, be a one-step locking operation wherein the legs of the tweezers are flexed toward each other, forcing the distal gripping means to engage the hackle or fishing line.
Likewise, the preferred method for disengagement would be effectively another one-step operation. The present invention incorporates a sliding locking mechanism which flexes the legs toward each other when moved to its distal direction and releases the legs when the moved to its proximal position.
In light of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide lockable tweezers for holding a hackle or other fishing items that are engaged with a fishing line to establish an effective means to facilitate the threading of the hackle or fishing line over the shaft of a fishing hook to generate a final fishing hook/hackle fly.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a locking mechanism which can be slid distally or proximately along the pair of legs in a one-step operation.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a lockable tweezers for tying fly-fishing hooks which is relatively easy to manufacture, simple to operation and comparatively cost effective.